Closer Encounters. Merline Lovelace

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      Catalina’s Green Pier jutted into the harbor from midpoint on Avalon’s narrow, sandy beach. It got its name from the green-painted structure perched in the center of the pier. According to a tourist brochure Tracy had read, the wooden building, with its dazzling white trim and distinctive clock tower, was the island’s second most recognizable landmark after the casino. Originally a fish market, it now housed the official weigh station for sport fishermen, souvenir shops and eateries.

      To Tracy’s secret relief, her escort insisted on paying for their meal. They ate in the open air, carrying their soft drinks and red plastic baskets to a long wooden table with an unobstructed view of the circular harbor and the town that hugged it. As advertised, the fish was crunchy on the outside, deliciously moist and flaky inside. The French fries and hush puppies were steaming hot. Tracy burned the inside of her mouth on the first bite, yet had to fight to keep from scarfing down another.

      “This is nice,” Drew commented, his gaze skimming over the boats rocking gently on the swells.

      “Yes, it is.”

      Those scary moments on the casino balcony faded as Tracy munched on her hush puppy and drank in the scene. The late afternoon shadows had deepened into an early evening dusk. Lights were beginning to twinkle on in the shops and houses that stair-stepped up the steep hills surrounding the bay. The breeze had died and the temperature hovered at a comfortable sixty-five or so. The scene was so calm, so idyllic. Just as Jack had described it.

      “Very nice,” she murmured with a hitch in her voice that matched the one in her heart.

      Dunking a fry in ketchup, she pushed it around and waited for the ache to pass. When she looked up, she found Drew watching her with a question in his eyes.

      They were really sexy eyes, Tracy decided, a palette of gold and brown and green framed by lashes the same color as the mahogany streaks in his dark hair. She liked the face they were set in, too. She wouldn’t qualify it as handsome, exactly. More rugged-looking, with a strong chin and tanned skin that suggested he spent more time outdoors than in. With his broad shoulders and lean, athletic body, he didn’t look the type to go in for salon tanning sessions.

      Not that Tracy was any judge of type. Except for Jack, her relationships with the male species had been brief and somewhat less than satisfactory.

      The thought made the ache sharper, until it lanced into her like vicious little shards. It took an act of sheer will to respond to Drew’s silent query.

      “A friend of mine used to come here years ago. He fell in love with the place and talked all the time about coming back.”

      “Why didn’t he?”

      “I guess…I guess he just never got around to it.”

      She couldn’t talk about Jack. The hurt was too raw, too private. Scanning the harbor, she latched on to a sleek white yacht as a change of topic.

      “Look at that. What do you suppose something like that costs?”

      “More than either of us could afford.”

      The drawled response piqued Tracy’s curiosity. All she knew about this man was his name and that he had really sexy eyes. She glanced down and saw he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. That didn’t mean anything, of course, but it gave her the incentive to pry a little.

      “Where’s home for you, Drew?”

      “I live in Virginia, about an hour south of D.C.”

      “What do you do?”

      “My father-in-law and I own and operate a chain of shops that specialize in classic car restoration.”

      Well, that settled the question of his marital status. Tracy was battling an absurd sense of disappointment when her dinner companion added a clarification.

      “Actually, Charlie is my ex-father-in-law. I met his daughter some years back. I was in the navy then, and it took Joyce all of eight months to decide being a sailor’s wife wasn’t her thing. Not this particular sailor’s wife, anyway.”

      She didn’t detect any hurt in his crooked grin. Only a self-deprecating chagrin.

      “I take it the divorce didn’t damage your relationship with your wife’s father.”

      “Just the opposite. Charlie was as relieved as Joyce when we split. He saw how upset she got when I had to pull sea duty.”

      Upset wasn’t quite the right word for it, Drew thought wryly. His high-strung, temperamental wife had pitched a world-class fit every time he’d had to pack his sea bag. Short of going AWOL, all Drew could do was promise to leave the navy when his hitch was up.

      Joyce had decided to leave him instead. Drew had never admitted it to anyone, but he’d been every bit as relieved as his father-in-law when she’d filed for divorce.

      “Charlie and I always got along well,” he said with a shrug. “So well he asked me to join him in his business when I left the navy.”

      Their partnership had proved far more enduring and satisfying than his marriage. Drew had already been recruited by OMEGA and needed a base of operations that would allow him to come and go at will. Charlie had been happy to turn over most of the traveling to classic car conventions and searches for rare parts to his partner.

      Drew knew Charlie suspected his business partner did more than shop for parts during those travels, but the old man had never asked about the extended absences. The fact that Drew had helped grow Classic Motors, Inc. into a nationwide chain of highly profitable shops might have had something to do with Charlie’s reticence.

      “What about you?” he asked, getting back to the business that had sent him on this particular trip. “What do you do?”

      “I worked as a budget analyst for a defense contractor in Puget Sound until recently.”

      He waited, wondering if she’d admit she’d been fired. When she didn’t, he applied the screws.

      “Why did you leave?”

      “It was, uh, time to look for something better.” With a show of nonchalance, she nodded to the sleek white yacht. “Who knows, maybe I’ll land something that pays enough to afford one of those.”

      “Yeah,” he drawled, “who knows?”

      Drew had spent almost six years as an undercover operative. In that time he’d taken down his share of drug dealers, black marketers and other scum who trafficked in human misery. He’d learned the hard way that greed had some ugly faces. Real ugly. Even the so-called religious fanatics who blew themselves up or bombed abortion clinics in the name of God were motivated by a sadistic hunger for dominance and power.

      In Drew’s considered opinion, the bastards who sold their country’s secrets were among the worst of the lot. Their avarice put the lives of СКАЧАТЬ